The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Adidas After Yeezy: The partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was the stuff of sneakerhead legend—and its demise has the shoe company scrambling to replace nearly half of its profits. (Businessweek)
• VC Contagion Is Venture Capital Killing Itself? Capital owners will rationally seek to multiply their wealth. But too often they hunger for risk. Capital allocators should pursue great investments. But too often they hunger for a way to deploy capital quickly. Startups want fuel to grow their businesses. But too often they hunger for cash as a status symbol or for their own quick enrichment. (Newcomer)
• The Man Who Knows What the World’s Richest People Want (and How To Get It): Rey Flemings has become one of the premiere fixers for the global elite. More than that, though, he gives the rich a place to admit what they can’t say publicly: that they need help finding happiness. (Vice)
• Land around the U.S. is sinking. Here are some of the fastest areas: Regions with the highest land subsidence in the United States are mainly located along the East and Gulf Coast, but there a few selected hot spots around the country. (Washington Post)
• Astrophysics and stale beer: What life is like working at the South Pole Those who live at the South Pole approach the ice with a sense of awe that borders on religious conviction. (Salon)
• California Builds the Future, for Good and Bad. What’s Next? From reparations to tax revolts, the Golden State tries out new ideas all the time. What roads will its latest experiments send us down? (New York Times)
• The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers: They were taught that public schools are evil. Then a Virginia couple defied their families and enrolled their kids. (Washington Post)
• The Mystery of the Disappearing van Gogh: After a painting by the Dutch artist sold at auction, a movie producer claimed to be the owner. It later vanished from sight, with a trail leading to Caribbean tax havens and a jailed Chinese billionaire. (New York Times)
• Kid Cop Returns (Again and Again): As a teenager, Vincent Richardson became a Chicago legend after successfully impersonating a police officer. He got caught — so why did he do it over and over? Well, when you’re really good at something… (The Verge)
• An Anthropologist of Filth: Chuck Berry: An American Life: His songs idealize the glinting surfaces of a new consumer society; his private pursuits involve sheer waste, base material, excess expenditure. He is both the impish spirit of rock and roll and its undisclosed agon. Here is the kind of small-town diner he might once have hymned in his golden-era songs, hijacked and stained by his own darkly private desires. Unforgiving of Berry’s crimes, but neither is a self-righteous prig or martinet. Over the course of Smith’s excellent book, it becomes clear that Berry is an ideal case study for a moment relentlessly preoccupied with the chasm between the artist and the art. (Harper’s Magazine)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Ramit Sethi writes about money, business, and psychology. He is the author of NYT bestseller I Will Teach You to Be Rich and the host of the popular Netflix series “How to Get Rich.”
Five Office Sector Metrics to Watch
Source: Office of Financial Research
Ritholtz Reads is taking a vacation, and will return June 15th.
